The Five Steps of IMC

Dec 19, 2018By Mallory Willsea

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a process through which organizations accelerate returns by taking a customer‐centric approach to aligning their marketing and communication objectives with their business or institutional goals. (Definition provided by Don and Heidi Schulz.)

Four key things to note about IMC:

IMC is an ongoing process, not just a one‐off campaign. That process includes strategic planning, measurement, and refinement of communications.

The goal of IMC is to accelerate returns. This most often means growing revenue faster.

IMC is customer‐centric. Marketing is no longer about pushing out messages and hoping people will listen. We must understand and develop empathy for the people we are trying to reach — and put them at the core of our efforts.

IMC is about aligning objectives with goals.

In short, IMC is a replacement for outdated marketing models and funnels. Think about it — there’s no mention of customers in the four P’s model (price, product, promotion, place). And funnel‐based approaches miss the reality that the customer decision‐making process is rarely linear.

Five Steps of the IMC Process

1. Identify your customers from behavioral data

Let’s start with this assumption: For education institutions, the customer is the student.

Behavioral data: Tells us what customers do, how they act, and their history in relation to our offering.

Demographic data: Tells us a customer’s age, location, gender, income, and so on.

IMC is based on what people do. The key takeaway is that behavioral data is going to yield better results over demographic data, every single time. Aggregate your customers according to their behaviors first. After that, enhance it with other types of segmentation.

2. Determine the financial value of your customers and prospects

Marketing is traditionally considered an organizational expense. However, an IMC mindset requires us to look at marketing as an investment, a strategic tool that influences incoming dollars.

To know what we can spend to attract new students, we must know the financial value of our current students and prospects. This value becomes the basis for marketing investment because customers drive revenue. Use this value to set goals and determine what marketing actions to take.

3. Create and deliver messages and incentives

We can now set marketing goals that tie back to our institution’s financial goals, and then create and deliver meaningful marketing communications to prospects and customers.

Tie marketing objectives to financial outcomes using these two components:

Delivery: Where do customers come into contact with your brand? Where do they want to come into contact with your brand?

Content: What customer insights can you use to connect what your brand wants to deliver with what your customer wants to acquire?

While a traditional marketing approach would require you to determine your creative content first and then select the channel, IMC flips this process around by asking first for an understanding of where your customers are. With that knowledge, you can meet them there with content and messaging that is grounded in customer insights.

4. Estimate the return on customer investment (ROCI)

Step four focuses on determining ROCI as a result of your marketing and communications. This is the goal of IMC.

Wouldn’t you rather invest in marketing efforts that will yield the most loyal and profitable customers? Prove to senior leaders that you can turn a $100 investment into $1,000 in customer revenue and you’ll never need to fight for budget again.

How? Use:

Analytics: descriptive, predictive

Attribution: first, last, and multitouch

Optimization: A/B tests, control groups

5. Budget, allocate, evaluate, and recycle

A true IMC approach requires that you budget at the end, which is the opposite of how most college and university budgeting processes unfold.

Think like an investor and know important financial numbers: customer acquisition cost, retention rate, and the difference between your short‐term and long‐term returns.

Understand the three C’s:

Contribution: dollars generated over time

Commitment: how many dollars you get vs. the competition

Champions: support, involvement, and advocacy of your brand
And now that you can prove IMC’s impact, you can truly evaluate the effectiveness of your program and use that insight to plan for the future. Remember that IMC is cyclical.

Connect IMC to Your Brand Through Storytelling

At mStoner, we’re known to say: Branding is storytelling; storytelling is branding. And integrated marketing communications (IMC) is the process through which your stories reach your audiences.

Earlier this year, we explored the intersection of brand + story + IMC. This webinar is free and available on‐demand. You’ll learn key storytelling principles, concrete planning steps and three key lessons, and see best‐practice examples.

Mallory WillseaDirector of Marketing and SalesProud ENFJ, here! What does that mean for mStoner, besides entertaining colleagues with my wit and charm? I'm a problem-solver and enjoy working through our potential client's challenges to identify solutions and how a partnership with mStoner will bring value.